A reader had sent along the following — before Iain’s preliminary estimate of Texas’s $6 billion RNCT tax bill was posted:
I think there will be more resistance to carbon taxes than Ken Green thinks.
Even here in liberal-loony Austin, people are willing to be green only if it doesn’t cost them.
Even with a $4.50-per-watt subsidy (the highest in the country), few folks take the local utility up on its offer to install solar panels on their houses. I see a few solar hot-water heaters on rooftops, but not that many — and in the summers here, when you park your car in the sun, it gets hot enough inside to cook food.
There is a vocal minority that walks the talk, but for the most part folks either don’t care, or they care — but not enough to pay extra.
So should we really be looking for the least-worst option, when it’s not crystal clear that a carbon tax really is politically inevitable?